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the people to be taken captive to Babylon, so he also signified beforehand their returning again to their own land after 70 years. When the 70 years were therefore completed, Cyrus becomes king of the Persians, who, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, in the second year of his reign, issued a proclamation ordering by means of a written decree all the Jews who were in his kingdom to return to their own country and to rebuild the temple for God, which the aforementioned king of Babylon had destroyed. In addition to these things, Cyrus, at the command of God, ordered Sabessarus and Mithridates, his own bodyguards, that the vessels from the temple of Judea taken by Nebuchadnezzar be brought back and deposited in the temple. So in the second year of Cyrus the 70 years are fulfilled, which were foretold by Jeremiah. From this it is possible to see how our sacred writings are shown to be more ancient and more true than those of the Greeks and Egyptians, or indeed any other historiographers. For Herodotus and Thucydides, or Xenophon, or the other historiographers, most of them began to write almost from the reign of Cyrus and Darius, not being able to speak with accuracy of the older and earlier times. For what great thing did they say if they spoke about Darius and Cyrus, the kings of the barbarians, or, among the Greeks, of Zopyrus and Hippias, or the wars of the Athenians and Lacedaemonians, or the deeds of Xerxes, or of Pausanias, who was in danger of perishing from hunger in the temple of Athena, or about Themistocles and the Peloponnesian war, or about Alcibiades and Thrasybulus? For our subject is not one of much speaking, but to reveal the quantity of time from the foundation of the world and to expose the pointless labor and nonsense of the writers, that there are neither twenty-thousand myriads of years, as Plato said, and this, dogmatizing that so many years have passed from the flood until his own times, nor indeed 15 myriads and 375 years, as we have previously said Apollonius the Egyptian relates; nor is the world uncreated and everything by chance, as Pythagoras and the rest have prattled, but rather it is created and governed by providence by the God who made all things; and the whole time and the years are shown to those willing to be persuaded by the truth. Lest, therefore, we might seem to have declared things up to Cyrus, but to neglect the intervening times, as if not having the means to demonstrate, with God providing, I will try to explain the order of the succeeding times as well, as far as possible. of Tomyris in Massagetia, it then being the sixty-second Olympiad; from that time, indeed, the Romans were becoming great, with God strengthening them, Rome having been founded by Romulus, who is recorded as the son of Ares and Ilia, in the 7th Olympiad, on the 11th day before the Kalends of May, the year at that time being counted as ten months; When Cyrus died, therefore, as we have already said, in the sixty-second Olympiad, the time from the founding of Rome becomes 220 years, at which time also Tarquinius Superbus by name ruled the Romans, who first

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λαὸν αἰχμαλωτισθῆναι εἰς Βαβυλῶνα, οὕτως προεσήμανεν καὶ τὸ πάλιν ἐπανελθεῖν αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν γῆν αὐτῶν μετὰ ο ἔτη. τελειου- μένων οὖν ο ἐτῶν γίνεται Κύρος βασιλεὺς Περσῶν, ὃς κατὰ τὴν προφητείαν Ἰερεμίου δευτέρῳ ἔτει τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ ἐκήρυξεν κελεύων δι' ἐγγράφων τοὺς Ἰουδαίους πάντας, τοὺς ὄντας ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ αὐτοῦ ἐπιστρέφειν εἰς τὴν ἑαυτῶν χώραν καὶ τῷ θεῷ ἀνοικοδομεῖν τὸν ναόν, ὃν καθῃρήκει βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος ὁ προειρη- μένος. πρὸς τούτοις δὲ ὁ Κύρος κατ' ἐγκέλευσιν τοῦ θεοῦ προσέταξεν Σαβεσσάρῳ καὶ Μιθριδάτῃ, τοῖς ἰδίοις σωματοφύλαξιν, τὰ σκεύη τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ τοῦ τῆς Ἰουδαίας ληφθέντα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ναβουχοδονόσορ ἀποκομισθῆναι καὶ ἀποτεθῆναι εἰς τὸν ναόν. ἐν τῷ οὖν δευτέρῳ ἔτει Κύρου πληροῦται τὰ ο ἔτη, τὰ προειρημένα ὑπὸ τοῦ Ἰερεμίου. Ἐντεῦθεν ὁρᾶν ἔστιν πῶς ἀρχαιότερα καὶ ἀληθέστερα δείκνυται τὰ ἱερὰ γράμματα τὰ καθ' ἡμᾶς εἶναι τῶν καθ' Ἕλληνας καὶ Aἰγυπτίους, ἢ εἰ καί τινας ἑτέρους ἱστοριογράφους. ἤτοι γὰρ Ἡρόδοτος καὶ Θουκυδίδης ἢ καὶ Ξενοφῶν ἢ ὅπως οἱ ἄλλοι ἱστοριο- γράφοι, οἱ πλείους ἤρξαντο σχεδὸν ἀπὸ τῆς Κύρου καὶ ∆αρείου βασιλείας ἀναγράφειν, μὴ ἐξισχύσαντες τῶν παλαιῶν καὶ προτέρων χρόνων τὸ ἀκριβὲς εἰπεῖν. τί γὰρ μέγα ἔφασαν εἰ περὶ ∆αρείου καὶ Κύρου τῶν κατὰ βαρβάρους βασιλέων εἶπον, ἢ κατὰ Ἕλληνας Ζωπύρου καὶ Ἱππίου, ἢ τοὺς Ἀθηναίων καὶ Λακεδαιμονίων πολέ- μους, ἢ τὰς Ξέρξου πράξεις ἢ Παυσανίου τοῦ ἐν τῷ τεμένει τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς λιμῷ κινδυνεύσαντος διαφθαρῆναι, ἢ τὰ περὶ Θεμιστοκλέα καὶ τὸν πόλεμον τὸν Πελοποννησίων, ἢ τὰ περὶ Ἀλκιβιάδην καὶ Θρασύβουλον; Oὐ γὰρ πρόκειται ἡμῖν ὕλη πολυλογίας, ἀλλὰ εἰς τὸ φανερῶσαι τὴν τῶν χρόνων ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου ποσότητα καὶ ἐλέγξαι τὴν ματαιοπονίαν καὶ φλυαρίαν τῶν συγγραφέων, ὅτι οὐκ εἰσὶν ἐτῶν οὔτε δισμυρίαι μυριάδες, ὡς Πλάτων ἔφη, καὶ ταῦτα ἀπὸ κατακλυσμοῦ ἕως τῶν αὐτοῦ χρόνων τοσαῦτα ἔτη γεγενῆσθαι δογματίζων, οὔτε μὴν ιε μυρίαδες καὶ γοε ἔτη, κατὰ προειρήκαμεν Ἀπολλώνιον τὸν Aἰγύπτιον ἱστορεῖν· οὐδὲ ἀγένητος ὁ κόσμος ἐστὶν καὶ αὐτοματισμὸς τῶν πάντων, καθὼς Πυθαγόρας καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ πεφλυαρήκασιν, ἀλλὰ μὲν οὖν γενητὸς καὶ προνοίᾳ διοικεῖται ὑπὸ τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὰ πάντα θεοῦ· καὶ ὁ πᾶς χρόνος καὶ τὰ ἔτη δείκνυται τοῖς βουλομένοις πείθεσθαι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ. μήπως οὖν δόξωμεν μέχρι Κύρου δεδηλω- κέναι, τῶν δὲ μεταξὺ χρόνων ἀμελεῖν, ὡς μὴ ἔχοντες ἀποδεῖξαι, θεοῦ παρέχοντος καὶ τῶν ἑξῆς χρόνων τὴν τάξιν πειράσομαι κατὰ τὸ δυνατὸν ἐξηγήσασθαι. Τομύριδος ἐν Μασσαγετίᾳ, τότε οὔσης ὀλυμπιάδος ἑξηκοστῆς δευτέρας· ἔκτοτε ἤδη οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι ἐμεγαλύνοντο τοῦ θεοῦ κρατύνον- τος αὐτούς, ἐκτισμένης τῆς Ῥώμης ὑπὸ Ῥωμύλου, τοῦ παιδὸς ἱστορουμένου Ἄρεως καὶ Ἰλίας, ὀλυμπιάδι ζ, τῇ πρὸ ι καὶ α καλανδῶν Μαΐων, τοῦ ἐνιαυτοῦ τότε δεκαμήνου ἀριθμουμένου· τοῦ οὖν Κύρου τελευτήσαντος, ὡς ἔφθημεν εἰρηκέναι, ὀλυμπιάδι ἑξη- κοστῇ καὶ δευτέρᾳ, γίνεται ὁ καιρὸς ἀπὸ κτίσεως Ῥώμης ἔτη σκ, ᾧ καὶ Ῥωμαίων ἦρξεν Ταρκύνιος Σούπερβος τοὔνομα, ὃς πρῶτος